 Review by Matt 
UPDATED: 1.2 years ago
member for 6.3 years, 2789 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Jamestown,Guilford,NC
 $69 per month
 about 3 days
 "Super-fast, low latency, excellent peering"
 "A little pricy compared to FiOS"
 "Great value for the money compared to U-Verse or Road Runner"
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I live in a new community that fortunately was wired for North State Communications Lightstar Fiber Optic service. (»www.northstate.net/lightstar/) Much like Verizon's FiOS service, it's based upon BPON (Broadband Passive Optical Network) technology.
They offer several speed tiers, all the way up to a 30Mbps/5Mbps tier ... although once you get above the 6Mbps/1Mbps tier, the pricing is extremely high. The latency is wonderful, due to direct peering agreements with Level 3, Verizon (alter.net), and Global Crossing (glbx.net). They installed a APC battery backup on my house, and there appears to be a larger one for each section of my neighborhood. (See pics here: »[Fiber Pics] North State Communications Lightstar Pics)
I've dealt with AT&T (former Bellsouth) DSL and Time Warner Cable Road Runner and while Road Runner was an extremely stable connection, for $5 less a month, I get 6Mbps/1Mbps vs 5Mbps/384Kbps ... AT&T DSL isn't even remotely close in competition; especially on price.
The only issue I've had so far, was an intermittent connectivity issue on a Sunday evening ... since North State is a local Telco, the issue wasn't resolved until Monday morning so I had to use my Verizon EVDO service for the remainder of the evening. The flip side of that, is when you call, there is only one number to call and a live person answers within seconds. The rep can assist you with whatever you need. Very refreshing in a world of voice prompts and maddening phone menus.
Overall, I'm extremely happy and hope they expand the service and start offering IPTV so I can cut my ties to Time Warner altogether.
Update: I decided to treat myself to an upgrade back to the 15Mbps/2Mbps package. Speeds are in the 13Mbps/1.6Mbps range after protocol overhead.
Update: North State has lowered the price from $89/month to $74.95! In a world where the Time Warner's and AT&T's are constantly RAISING rates, my ILEC just lowered it $15/month!
Update: Price lowered again, now only $69.95/month! That's a $20 price decrease since I first ordered the service!
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North State Communications
